Best practices around preventing skipped records

[Stefan Coetzer]

We are a new-ish customer using ServiceNow, haven't worked on the platform before and mainly use it for the GRC module at the moment.

We want to stay as OOTB as possible to prevent skipped records, what would be the best way to make updates to default values? 

For example, Number of days to respond (when creating a new policy) is set to 14 by default, if we want to increase/decrease this should we edit the dictionary item default value/create a UI action/Client script? 

I would really appreciate any feedback on how you manage these changes and if possible links to any courses we can do to get a better understanding of the platform and how to manage changes.

I've completed the CSA learning path earlier this year but with no prior experience in the platform and very few use cases I'm not very confident about doing things by myself.

Thanks in advance!

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@Stefan Coetzer 

I didn't get what you mean here -> Number of days to respond

check these links

What's the process to review and address skipped changes? 

How to resolve skipped update records after an upgrade 

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[Stefan Coetzer]

Hey @Ankur Bawiskar!

Number of days to respond is a specific Integer field you set when creating a new policy using the GRC module.

When I view the dictionary item it has a default value of 14 so that field gets auto-populated when creating a new policy, we want to change this value but are wary of producing skipped records in general.

Another example would be - say we want to (when someone creates a new policy) add some text automatically to the Description field would we have to set up a business rule/client script to run on load when specific parameters are matched? 

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@Stefan Coetzer 

yes that's your customization as per customer requirement

Customizations are not altered during upgrade.

The only thing to keep in mind is if you are updating any OOTB dictionary or any other script etc then you need to review the skipped records

There could be a possibility that ServiceNow gave additional features for that dictionary or script and now you have to decide if you want that or keep your custom one or merge

💡 If my response helped, please mark it as correct ✅ and close the thread 🔒— this helps future readers find the solution faster! 🙏

[Stefan Coetzer]

Appreciate your help on this! 

So in summary creating business rules/client scripts in the relevant application scope would be the best way forward to modify values without changing out of the box behaviour as they are not affected by updates to the module which in turn would mean no skipped records are generated.